The Sandwich Generation -
Two young daughters,my parents,
two dogs, and a job working with older adults...I am living a sandwich life between the young and old! Evidently that wasn't enough, so I have added 9 chickens too! Update! 15 chickens!

Friday, November 9, 2012

My soapbox

When did we become a nation of people who feel entitled? What happened to common sense? Much less common courtesy? When did we decide that others would benefit, actually deserve to hear our critique of them? When did we stop saying, "Thank you"?

This became noticeable to me with the advent of Facebook. People became bolder in sharing their opinions of anything and everything anyone posted.

"I love Italian food!" someone posted.

Their "friend" posted, "What? Are you crazy? Don't you know how unhealthy Italian food can be? You are stupid to eat that!!!"

OK, so that specific example did not happen, but many more did.

Then with the election, if you posted that you were for a candidate, then you immediately received multiple postings telling you that you were wrong. Period. There was no explanation of why, just posts that told you that if you did not believe the same way they did, you were wrong!

I tolerated it.

Many of my friends bowed out of checking Facebook until after the election.

In the meantime, in public affairs, it seemed that this attitude was being exhibited regularly. People were going out of their way to address any and ALL transgressions that anyone did against them, to ensure that they set someone straight.

Why?

As an adult, it takes a WHOLE lot for me to change my behavior, much less my opinion. Your input will rarely be the catalyst for this change.

Now if it comes from my children, or my parents, I will take the time to think about what they said, but otherwise, I look at your opinion as something that is not wanted and instead my opinion of you is changed.

Now don't get me wrong. There are appropriate times, places, but most of all ways to provide guidance to someone.

If your child misbehaves, do you just tell them "Stop? Don't do that?" Well, then you will never get the behavior you want from that child. But if you take the time to provide a brief explanation of why and then redirect or lead them to an appropriate activity, you will all win. What compels us to believe that other adults will benefit from pointing out the errors that you perceive?

I hope soon we can return to a nation that is indivisible, that instead of man against man, we return to man helping man, looking for nice things to say to others, helping someone who could use a mental/physical boost every now and then.